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Michiel Roos notes that at this week's OpenSource World, a Dell executive deflated Microsoft's claims that Linux notebooks have return rates four or five times higher than Windows machines. "Todd Finch, Dell senior product marketing manager, said the number of Linux returns are approximately the same as those for Windows netbooks. He categorized the matter of returns as a 'non-issue.' 'They are making something of nothing,' he said of Microsoft's claims."

So maybe only open source users know about IdeaStorm? Regardless, Dell is staring down hundreds of thousands of users looking for more options that should honestly be very easy to provide. So if the returns are a "non-issue" and are similar to Windows returns then what's the deal, Dell?

I suspect that, while the enthusiasm on ideastorm is real, it isn't wildly representative.

Think about the people who are actually passionate about computer related stuff: You've got the Linux and/or FOSS guys, the hardcore gamers, the Mac-heads, some true Microsofties, and that's about it. Almost everybody else uses them, and wants them to work; but isn't going to spend their leisure time posting on some Dell messageboard about it.

Of those groups, the hardcore gamers and the Mac-heads wouldn't give Dell the time of day if they were on fire(in aggregate, obviously there are gamers with Dells; and the Mini-9 hackintosh crew; but the more passionately you are a member of those groups, the less likely you are to be running a Dell), while the Microsofties can already get all the MS software they want from Dell, so they have no reason to complain. Linux/FOSS enthusiasts are pretty much the only ones I'd expect to show up.

I suspect that, while the enthusiasm on ideastorm is real, it isn't wildly representative.

It isn't representative of Dell UK, I can tell you much. End of last year, I bought the wife a new laptop. She's a fan of Ubuntu, so I got her a Dell Inspiron with Ubuntu preloaed. She loves it - never been the least bit bother.

A month ago, my old laptop finally gave up the ghost, and I thought (seeing as how the Missus' machine was so reliable) that a Dell machine might be the way to go.

So I go to Dell's UK website, only to find that the only Ubuntu option they now offer is a minimum spec netbook - and that I suspect only because Michael Dell threatened to remove their testicles if they didn't offer something.

I suppose... if I'd wanted to phone them up, and if I'd been willing to spend the time arguing, I could probably have got my preloaded Ubuntu system.
Instead, I thought "sod it" and order an Acer instead.

I do wonder if Dell are aware of they shenanigans going on at their UK subsidiary sometimes. Operating system evangelism is all very well, but this is costing them sales, you know?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm part of the significant minority running Linux on Dells. I was just explaining why I was utterly unsurprised that there were absolutely no non-FOSS-related proposals at the top of the list. And, I must say, I am quite surprised that MS Works is the default you-were-too-cheap-for-office pack-in from Dell.

You say that, but did you look at the numbers on that page? The OpenOffice recommendation has more than 100,000 upvotes. Why would 100,000 people who don't care show up on Dell's webpage to click on that arrow?

Before your misinformation gets too far, a little clarification, Dell's IdeaStorm increments by 10 for each vote, meaning it has received 10,000 upvotes, not 100,000.

IdeaStorm looks completely useless as the top ideas (>100,000 votes) have been summarily discarded - actually any and all good, radical ideas have been discarded and it looks like the most common reason is "we make more money this way".

Dell is staring down hundreds of thousands of users looking for more options that should honestly be very easy to provide.

I can tell you from personal experience, none of those things are 'easy.' Yes, some of them are very easy for you and I. But we're talking about a huge unwieldy corporate machine where every good intention/new idea from the bottom of the org chart is unwelcome and punished.

FYI, for most people at any sufficiently large organization, the customer is at the very bottom of the org chart.

If the CEO drove these changes without endless, mind-numbing discussion and rooms full of people notifying her of the 'dangers' it would be a different story. But that's just not how it works at that level.

Coreboot would be at the very top of my list. From there, the user is free-er to do what they please with the computer. Words cannot describe how important that project is to the future of computing. Please, go help coreboot out.

Coreboot is hard, but Dell has the bad habit of installing thousands of software on every machine it sells. Adding Firefox and OpenOffice to the list seems pretty straightforward. OpenOffice and Firefox marketshare are far bigger than the computer enthusiast. Many people know that open office is the "Microsoft Office that is free". The fact that Dell leaves so many clients unsatisfied for a feature that is easy to add is a strong indication that the issues are contractual and commercial, not technical.

16. Sell it with a free pony.17. Can I get mine in plaid?18. I want fur everywhere on it.19. Get rid of the keyboard and put a mouse in the middle.20. PONIES!!!!!!!21. Stop making them so confusing, What it is with having the whole alphabet on the keyboard.22. Send it via Email instead of FedEx.23. Make it waterproof, I'm on my third one because of spills.

Essentially most of the initial high return rate was due to unclear advertising leading people to believe they were buying a window machine and getting linux. Dell has cleared up the advertising to make sure people know what they are buying and the high return rate has stopped.

The rates of sales are not relevant in that Microsoft is a monopoly, one convicted of criminal predatory practices, which forced hardware manufacturers into illegal contracts to exclude. That gave them the monopoly, and in case you don't know what a monopoly is and how hard it is to compete with a monopoly you might want to check up on that.

The only relevant statistic that I can see is one that tracks the rate of behavioral change as it relates to buying an alternative. Not in the number of sales but in t

Hardly worth the effort to reply but "What?" I don't think any of those words mean what you think they do.
In what way were the corporate convictions against MS "so-called"? They were, I assure you, quite real. Remember that a corporation can be convicted of a crime and no one go to jail. However fines are a very real sanction against a criminal corporation.
A political stunt no, not even close. MS was convicted of illegal restraint of trade and mis-use of a monopoly. Don't believe me look it up. I may not have the exact statutes that they violated but violate them they did. There is nothing "so-called" about them.

Microsoft's Turner said that Linux netbooks are being returned at a rate 4 to 5 times higher than Windows netbooks. Dell hasn't disputed this fact at all. Linux netbooks *are* being returned at a very high rate, and Dell's Finch says so right in the article:

Where consumers have returned machines, Finch said, it wasn't because of technical problems but because they'd bought a low-priced machine expecting Windows and opened it to find a different interface.

The difference is that people are returning the Windows netbooks because of technical reasons (broken hardware) and Linux netbooks because they don't want Linux.

I think you are missing the point. Dell says they are not receiving returns except at the same rate. He means that linux netbooks are being returned at the same rate as windows netbook returns. Now, Dell is the company that sells and accepts the returns. Microsoft has nothing to do with it. Microsoft has no first hand knowledge. Since they can't count Linux returns, as it has nothing to do with Windows returns, Microsoft would be clueless except maybe by receiving information from Microsoft funded reports.

Bottom line is that Dell is giving facts whereas Microsoft is giving conjecture.

Actually. Technically. The article says the same amount of returns for each... and I bet they sell a lot more windows machines, still...

From TFA:

... we don't see a significant difference between the return rate for Windows versus the rate for Linux.

So technically the article says return rate. Earlier the (very short) FA talked about the number of returns being the same but I believe that the explicit mention of rate clears up any possible ambiguity. A marketing manager might easily use the word number when he meant numbers or rate but his use of return rate seems completely unambiguous.

we don't see a significant difference between the return rate for Windows versus the rate for Linux

is it that you have difficulty reading. What he's saying is that Windows machines return at the approximately same rate for technical problems as Linux machines return due to both technical problems and misunderstandings. This implies that if they can improve their communication then the return rate of Linux machines will be significantly lower than the return rate for Windows machines. To be honest I have difficulty working out why. Surely the hardware should be pretty much the same? Is it possible that the rate of malware infection at the beginning of a modern, up to date, Windows system's life is really high enough to account for the extra Windows returns?

High initial returns on Linux netbooks is most likely due to inaccurate advertising. The market for Linux netbooks is primarily for people who already know what Linux is and desire it. Selling Linux netbooks to people seeking Windows isn't a good business plan. Dell thought it would be profitable and it wasn't.

It doesn't mean Linux sucks either, just that people prefer to stick with Windows because it's familiar-and we already knew that.

Well, maybe. The open source ecosystem has long since become large enough to be self-sustaining, so it's questionable how much it matters that Microsoft still has a majority of the market share. If MS went bankrupt tomorrow, it would be a minor win for Linux but mostly a huge win for Apple, and Apple's behavior as a company suggests strongly that they would be no less unpleasant as a near-monopoly than Microsoft currently is.

The important thing to me is that I have multiple free (in both senses) alternatives to MS and that those are not likely to go away in the foreseeable future. Would I like to buy a laptop without the Microsoft tax. Sure, but then, I pretty much already can, since I usually buy year-old off-lease corporate laptops at a steep discount -- being neither a hardcore gamer nor a videographer, most machines have been more than fast enough for everything else for several years now.

If the whole Free/Open Source Software movement was a battle for our freedom, we already won, and won decisively. The battle against Microsoft's very existence? Who cares? Odds are, Microsoft will be around for a long time to come, and waiting for it to die is like waiting for Apple or one of the *BSDs or any other stable niche offering to die: time better spent having actual fun and getting real work done.

Besides, it's not like Dell's products or their customer support are very good to begin with. When I can buy generic, standard laptop parts to build my own laptop as well as I can build my own desktop boxes, then I'll get excited. Until then, the token gestures of companies selling proprietary, closed hardware are really nothing to become overly concerned about.

The difference is that people are returning the Windows netbooks because of technical reasons (broken hardware) and Linux netbooks because they don't want Linux.

I don't know if it applies to the Netbooks, but from experience I found that Dell would put Linux on a computer, neglecting to ensure all the hardware in the device has associated drivers. If Dell still hasn't fixed this issue, then this is a Dell issue and not a Linux issue.

What would be more enlightening, is why the computers are getting returned.

Microsoft's Turner said that Linux netbooks are being returned at a rate 4 to 5 times higher than Windows netbooks. Dell hasn't disputed this fact at all. Linux netbooks *are* being returned at a very high rate, and Dell's Finch says so right in the article:

Where consumers have returned machines, Finch said, it wasn't because of technical problems but because they'd bought a low-priced machine expecting Windows and opened it to find a different interface.

The difference is that people are returning the Windows netbooks because of technical reasons (broken hardware) and Linux netbooks because they don't want Linux.

That's a win for Microsoft, no matter how you spin it.

From TFA: "we don't see a significant difference between the return rate for Windows versus the rate for Linux." So, yes Dell has disputed Microsoft's assertion. A return rate 4 to 5 times higher would be a significant difference.
So, it is not a win for Microsoft, no matter how you spin it.

No, its ignorant users not checking the specs before they click "order" is all. They find the cheapest machine on Dell.com and buy it without care, and when that machine arrives and doesn't run Windows, they send it back, and pay a restocking fee.

Many of these people also return their cheap windows boxes when they find out it can't run the games even their old computer could, but unfortunately most of them find out too late, as they'll have had the machine more than 14 days before they get too far into usi

Also the restore disk was a CD (The EEE doesn't have a CD drive), and it was MS Windows only (so you had to have a windows machine to use it). So if I did need to reinstall the OS my netbook came with for some reason, I would need not only a separate computer, but it has

People buying these machines know they ship with Ubuntu. It says so right on the website, and the button you click, and repeats it when you checkout. People aren't returning these machines more because they have Ubuntu, they're buying them more because they have Ubuntu.

Now, if only this would rub off on the rest of the business sectors. I'd love to buy a new Studio 15 laptop with the option for Ubuntu. It'd save me 45 minutes formatting, reinstalling Ubuntu and reconfiguring the system the way I like. But unfortunately their selection for machines with Ubuntu only includes the crap Inspiron line (the Ford Fiesta of laptops).

I'd love to buy a new Studio 15 laptop with the option for Ubuntu. It'd save me 45 minutes formatting, reinstalling Ubuntu and reconfiguring the system the way I like.

45 minutes??? It took me 4 hours to get my Studio 17 to work flawlessly with linux. The damned WLan and Wireless cards had to be swapped out for standard ones instead of the crap that Dell put's in there. I had to surf ebay for 1 hour alone to fund good quality Intel Cards to buy to replace the dell brand garbage that is a windows only car

When I worked for WorstBuy Canada, every time a new model Mac would come out. I knew I would be seeing a pile of Mac returns starting in about a week. They would have lots of generic faults listed as the reason for the return, but 95% of them I wiped the drive, reinstalled the software and right back to the store.
I used to think of it as "Returned because my pirated copy of Office doesn't work."

Incredibly vague wording there that means his quote can be interpreted either way. Windows machines outsell Linux ones so if they're experiencing the same number of returns, it indicates people are less happy with the Windows one. Did he really mean same percentage or same number?

Also, given that this was a Dell rep at an Open Source show, he wasn't exactly going to go "yeah, Linux hasn't really been working for us, it sucks, we'll be switching to Windows".

Later in the article he says, "we don't see a significant difference between the return rate for Windows versus the rate for Linux. " Return rate has a very specific meaning in the retail industry, it means a percentage of units sold.

Seriously. Get real. If you were about to start shipping Windows 7 and haggling for a better price per copy you *would* say that Linux returns aren't bad wouldn't you? The whole idea is to try to get the best possible deal out of MS.

if anyone hasn't noticed, Apple and Microsoft have been playing very nice together since last year.

Apple has licensed ActiveSync for the iphone and MobileMethere is Exchange 2007 integration into Snow LeopardNew MS Office for the Mac will have an Outlook client for the first time with full Exchange integration

I think MS is playing nice with Apple to get back at Dell and HP for the netbook linux thing. If HP and Dell want to ship linux PC's, then MS is going to help Apple poach Dell's most profitable customers

and Apple seems to not want to compete in the desktop space. macbook pro's and imacs are made of the same internal parts and Apple seems content selling the same PC at ridiculous mark ups to it's niche market. the way everything is integrated on the motherboard today and the fact that it's very easy to build a consumer level hackintosh it shouldn't be a big deal for Apple to sell a desktop system that's cheaper than the imac's laptop internals.

I think MS is playing nice with Apple to get back at Dell and HP for the netbook linux thing. If HP and Dell want to ship linux PC's, then MS is going to help Apple poach Dell's most profitable customers

How does doing that help Microsoft in any way? So they can laugh at Dell when they both end up like GM? Microsoft is seeing reductions in sales hand over fist [betanews.com] in all divisions and is trying to increase their profit margin and maintain their monopoly any way they can. If that means licensing their stuff

Which is dumb, because Dell and HP could just as easily start pushing their Linux machines further. Advertising and user education is all Linux needs at this point (well, aside from a not-crap audio framework). Microsoft should just keep its mouth shut - by default that puts the strain on their partners.

heu, it is not...
On their search engine you can search by operating system which features ubuntu or freedos/linux. There can not be this choice in all categories, but it was present in the first 3 I just tried.

And here we see Microsoft making messy and untenable assertions to the detriment of its ostensibly valuable business partners. My charitable side is prone to thinking that these moves are just oblivious on Microsoft's part, but the side that's been reading Slashdot for a decade suggests that they still think they're too big to be affected by their own irked customers... and it's happy to see that notion countered more and more these days. Next slide.

Return rates for a new, less familiar product are higher than those for an older product which customers had 15 years to evaluate and decide if they want. This doesn't mean the new product is bad. On the contrary, people who are returning it - and those who are not - bought it because they were not completely satisfied with the old product (on price or other reasons) and wanted to evaluate other solutions.

Firefox, OpenOffice.org and multimedia on Linux continue to suck big time. Lets work on these so that if one takes the Linux plunge, that person gets pleasantly surprised.

Well... that is your PERCEPTION of Firefox, OOo and Linux Multimedia, isn't it. Actually I think Firefox on Linux works great, multimedia is pretty good (though Balkanized across several programs, and that OOo is perfect for the "office" tasks I have to do. I also have to say that Ubuntu is the only distribution of any OS (Windows and MacOS included in this statement) that has impressed me with EVERY new version I install. A lot of the perception is just simply because a lot of people haven't used it. P

No they don't. You're just trying to add to the mindless anti-Linux hysteria.

All of these are quite suitable for the average user and in many cases FARSUPERIOR to the default Lemming option. Linux multimedia software inparticular is used to bail out both Windows and MacOS from usability andfunctionality issues.

Time to find a new FUD talking point. "Linux multi-media" is over in this respect.

What we should do, is to focus our efforts on make Linix and OSS technologies relevant to the average human being....Lets work on these so that if one takes the Linux plunge, that person gets pleasantly surprised.

Have you looked at one of the Dell netbooks with Linux on it? We bought two Mini-9's for testing where I work; I got one, and one of the other network admins got the other. The things are awesome, except for a couple of minor gripes:

1) A couple of tools that I expected (sshd, slocate, rsync) aren't available on the install or the on-line package repository, since it's a slightly lobotomized Dell-specific version of Ubuntu that's installed on the Mini-9;
2) The software update site that Synaptic syncs from worked for about a month, then stopped working (I haven't bothered to call Dell to ask what happened, but I probably should so I can keep the OS updated);
3) It occasionally will not resume after suspending.

Item one problem won't matter to most users; just network geeks like myself. Item two is probably the biggest problem, but like I said, I haven't tried to contact Dell to see why synaptic/apt-get update/etc. can no longer connect to the update server. Item three also happens on my wife's Vista laptop, so doesn't seem to be a differentiating characteristic of Linux over Windows.

On the other hand, the wireless (typically a weakness for Linux distros in my experience) is rock solid, quickly and easily connecting to wireless networks with no fuss and no hassle...very much unlike the wireless on my wife's Vista laptop, which frequently can't find wireless networks, won't stay connected in cases where it does, and/or provides mind-numbingly slow transfer rates when it can connect. Setting up network printers is again far easier and more reliable than the printer setup on my wife's Vista laptop, which has to be reconfigured every single time she reboots. As far as multimedia...I can play DVDs on my Mini-9, I can watch YouTube videos. As far as Firefox and Open Office...on Linux "suck[ing] big time", well...FF may be somewhat slower to run JavaScript and OOo may not have *all* the features or be as pretty as MS Office, but I'll take standards-compliant FF over IE and free OOo with all its faults over MS' $500 price tag and freaking annoying "ribbon" interface any day.

In other words, I think the FOSS/Linux community has done a great deal to make Linux and OSS technologies relevant to the average human being. I see FOSS/Linux as pretty good already and getting even better, but YMMV.

Who? Microsoft?? Seriously?? Amazing. Noone would ever think of that,...unless take a watch of Microsoft's history of claims since, well, ever (yes, ever, probably they got in the future a time machine and said Eve that glass is the safest food in the history, but she was smart and picked Apple)

You're probably correct in pointing out that they make a choice. Whether they make an informed choice is another matter. I doubt there are many non-techies that truly make an informed choice about what OS they intend to use. I doubt that usage percentage has anything to do with what system is actually better and more to do with what they use at work or school or what their neighbor who is "good with computers" thinks.

You just said 'I doubt that usage percentage has anything to do with what system is actually better and more to do with what they use at work or school or what their neighbor who is "good with computers" thinks.'

Sounds like you just said they go with Windows because they know how to use it and can get support. I threw in applications because they are more fun to use than an OS.

20 years, eh? Given 20 years of "better," I'd expect everything I own to be running MacOS, but alas, it's Windows for desktops, Li

Fear mongering? Are you claiming that people don't like to use things that are familiar to them, or that claiming that they do IS fear mongering?

Also, I don't know what DOS or Slackware has to do with anything. For the record, getting Slackware from 1996 switched over to glibc was significantly harder than building a config.sys and autoexec.bat pair for any given app.

There is also the possibility that people make a choice based on fear mongeringor the perception that they don't really have any other option. The DOS platformhas long sold itself on the fact that it is the most widely used and is effectively"compatable" with anything.

The fear that there is some remote chance that they might be marginalized by not beinga part of the Microsoft hegemony is a considerable fear factor. Often the choice to useor stay with Microsoft products is essentially coerced.

It's really hard to get a Dell netbook delivered with Linux. At the moment, the Latitude 2100 [dell.com] is one of the very few machines to come with Linux. It's $30 cheaper than with a Microsoft OS. Dell's search page has a "FreeDOS and Linux" option, and if you check that, you get "No configurations are valid for the selected options." There's a Linux option for the Mini 10v [dell.com], but the Windows versions has an "instant discount" to bring its price down to match the Linux version. (Also, the Windows version comes wit

This is not specific to Dell, but Netbooks in general. The goal of the Netbook builders seem to be making them as cheap as possible and that is one of the many reasons why they choose free Linux over costly Windows. However, simply because they are making them as cheap as possible, they're also just shoddy computers and they get returned because of that. I have and likely always will be of the opinion that 99% of computer users don't care what OS they use as long as they can surf the web, check their e-mail, do their taxes, etc.

In the store where I bought a Aspire, the clerk offered a "refurbished" model with XP for a lower price. I asked him if
they were being returned because they were too slow, and he shamefacedly admitted that was the case.

The people who return Linux netbooks do so because they can't find the big blue "e" on the desktop. To hell with them, I say.

Linux is fucking king now. Linux shits all over the chests and faces of the MS-loving ignorami and fucks their wives and sisters. The strong survive and run or migrate to Linux, the weak do not live on because they are cuckolded by Linux users.

We, the Linux users, are fucking king...no, GODS. We are the gods who demand sacrifice! Ha. Ha ha. HahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!

Real trolls and flame bait artists take note: If you state your comment in a funny enough manor then all sins are forgiven. We, the mods, don't mod you down because we disagree or are offended, but because, well frankly you are boring and we're just trying to help people avoid the same old non creative crap. So go to comedy school and take some creative writing classes.

You're absolutely right about customers having to seek it out. Heck right there in the article they basically say that when they subtract the people who are returning the netbooks because it isn't windows, then the returns are a non-issue.

Which is why I think it's such a shame that you go on to invalidate your otherwise perfectly reasonable point by perpetuating a worn-out, well-debunked meme.

At my local supercenter I wrote down brands and looked them up and was looking at barely 20% "supported", if you call doing a CLI voodoo dance for hours and barely getting half functionality support.

Since you don't bother to state what kind of devices you're talking about, I'll simply relate my experience. My mother's a 57-year-old computer illiterate. I put ubuntu on a machine for her to try out. Once in a while (maybe twice a year) she has to call me to ask what program she needs to do X. Her multi-function printer: worked out of the box, including scanning. Her ipod: worked out of the box. Her $5.00 keychain digital pictureframe: worked out of the plasticwrap. Her DSLR? works out of the box. Her HD video recorder: works out of the box. I haven't seen one single device touch her computer that failed to function on the first try, without her ever doing any "cli voodoo dance". She never does any research about whether stuff works with linux, she just goes and buys stuff and uses it. And she's getting a nice supply of new coasters from all the worthless driver discs that come with these products, that I've comfortably told her she can just ignore from here on out.

I can tell you why Dell isn't having the return issue, even though it will get me modded down by the zealots. Do you want to know why? It is actually quite simple: It is because Dell has the Linux Netbooks hidden, that's why! Are they on the front page? Nope. Are they on the first page you get when you type "Netbook" on their site? Nope again. And there is a REASON for that, and it is pretty damned smart if you ask me. The reason is that the ONLY way you are gonna get a Linux anything from Dell is if you know about them and go hunting for them. That means the customer A-knows EXACTLY what Linux is, and B- Is willing to go out of their way to get it.

Heh... As an exercise, I conducted a little experiment. I wanted to see if your claims were at all true...

Third click: "Choose your mini" [dell.com]. At which point you're offered a choice between a blue one or a red one (A 10v or a 10) which lists Linux or Windows XP as the OS.

At which point you're into purchasing. Now... Oddly enough, there was only one choice which was clearly marked "Customize With Ubuntu"- but it's one of the ones you'd really, really want, whether you're doing Ubuntu or XP, unless you're unable to afford the extra $20-50 for the stock config on the price. Seriously.

As an observation, neither "Linux" nor "Ubuntu" was plugged into looking for this ephemeral "buried" netbook you're claiming- just "netbook".

Four.Clicks.

And it was the same number if you were looking for a Linux preinstall or an XP one.

Sorry, you're neither correct nor insightful- and I wish the people that'd modded you up had bothered to do the same little experiment I did and didn't give you the time of day, any more than the discussion threads over at Linux Today gave you an inch on this stuff you're coming up with. Which, I might add, is verbatim what you posted over here.